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“I don’t think it’d be easy,” I protest, but maybe a part of me had thought it could be that simple. Victor’s already at war with Pavone. Why not have them just return to us? “Please, I want to help you.”
“I think you’ve ‘helped’ me enough,” Lucia says. She tries to shake me off, but I tighten my grip on her, desperate to get her to stay.
I startle when Angel wraps his hand around my wrist and forces my arm away from her. Lucia takes the opportunity to escape my embrace.
“You want to help Lucia?” Angel growls, dangerously close to me. “Always about her. Guess you wouldn’t be putting half this much effort into it if it were just me.”
“That’s not… That’s not true,” I protest. “I want you back, too. You just don’t need my help. You never need my help.”
Angel’s expression softens for a second, although his grip on my wrist remains tight. “You want me back? Prove it. Show me how much you want me.”
I swallow hard, knowing what he wants, but I’m terrified of it, too. I want to ask him why we can’t just be friends, why he can’t just take my word for it, but I know better. I know what he wants from me, and it isn’t just to be friends.
And so help me, I don’t want to just befriendseither.
My face heats up. I might want Lucia, but this is my first time admitting to myself that I want Angel, too. It doesn’t make any sense to me. I’m not like Angel. I’m notbisexual.
I just… want him even though he’s a guy. That doesn’t make me gay or bi or anything. Right?
I glance over at Lucia, but she isn’t any help. She’s watching us with interest. Or maybe even withinterest. She’d made it clear how hot she thinks it is when I’m with Angel.
“Lucia…” I say quietly. “If I do this, will you come back to us?”
She shakes her head. “No.”
For a while that word hangs between us, the hurt drowning out everything else.
“I can’t. You’re… I think about you, sometimes. But if I leave Pavone, there are worse consequences. All I—allwe—can give you is this stolen moment.”
“But I want more than a stolen moment,” I tell her desperately. “Please. There has to be something I can do, something me and Victor can do. We can protect you if you leave him.”
“You can’t protect my mother and my sister,” she says quietly. “Or Angelo’s family.”
Those words are just as potent as thatno, bringing in the stark reality of the situation. This isn’t just between the four of us. The stakes have gotten so much higher.
“But what if we could?” I ask, pleading with her, even as Angel holds my wrist in his hand. “What if we could get rid of Pavone? Then you’d be safe. They’d be safe. Both of you could come back to us.”
She sighs and smiles sadly. “Think I haven’t considered that? He has a lot of allies. Killing him won’t end things. Not to mention the trouble we’ll have from the feds, between my father’s “disappearance” and all the upheaval in the city’s underworld.”
Lucia thinks that’s the end of it, but I grin at her. “There’s going to be upheaval anyway. Whether it’s from Pavone taking over, or Victor, someone will have to deal with the aftermath.”
She raises her eyebrows at me. “And you thinkyoucan handle it? Pavone’s currently got all my family’s funds tied up, I have no idea where my father hid his secret accounts, Pavone has countless allies, and… yes, the whole dead body issue.”
I shake off Angel’s hand, surprised that he lets me go, and walk over to Lucia. I brush a few strands of hair away from her face. “I can find your dad’s accounts. As for his allies… The problem has always been the size of Pavone’s group, right? With you and Angel on the inside, you could feed me and Victor information. You’ll keep Pavone distracted while we do our thing. Victor’s not going to turn down an offer to eliminate Pavone.”
The mention of Victor has her expression hardening, though. “And Victor will let me and my family go after that? Yeah, right. He’s going to lock me up again and sell my sister to the highest bidder. The way he threatened to do to me.”
I want to argue with her, but she’s not wrong. Victor will want some sort of leverage over her because he’ll want things to go back to the way they were. “But me and Angel won’t let him. Right, Angel?”
Angel snorts in amusement. “Sure. Victor’s been known to listen to my opinions.”
I frown at him. “C’mon. If the two of us work together, we can make sure Victor can’t hurt her anymore.”
“That’s all fine and noble of you,” Lucia says, “but we all know you give in the second Victor wants something.”
“No, I don’t!” I say emphatically. “I’m the reason you got out of your punishment early last time. I told him I didn’t agree with what he was doing, and he agreed.” I don’t tell her the part where Victor had been sure she needed to stay in the closet longer, and that she might’ve even broken for us if he’d had his way. We just won’t let that happen again.
“I don’t want him to touch me,” Lucia says coolly.
